The Brewers and Royals have agreed to a trade sending right-handed reliever Taylor Clarke from Kansas City to Milwaukee in exchange for minor league righty Ryan Brady and minor league infielder Cam Devanney, the teams announced Thursday. The trade of Clarke opens a spot on the Royals’ 40-man roster for newly signed Seth Lugo, whose three-year $45MM contract (the third year of which is a player option) is now official. Neither Brady nor Devanney is on the 40-man roster.
Clarke, 30, has spent the past two seasons in Kansas City after opening his career with a three-year stint in Arizona. He enjoyed a solid 2022 campaign with the Royals, tallying 49 innings of 4.04 ERA ball out of the bullpen with a roughly average 23.6% strikeout rate and a brilliant 3.9% walk rate.
That success didn’t carry over to the 2023 season, however. Clarke pitched 59 innings — his highest total since working as a starter with the D-backs as a rookie in 2019 — but was clobbered for a 5.95 ERA. His 24.4% strikeout rate was a slight improvement over the prior season, but walk rate more than doubled to 9%. Clarke also found himself far more susceptible to unfavorable contact; his opponents’ “barreled” ball rate more than doubled from 6.2% to 12.6%, and his HR/9 mark accordingly exploded, soaring from a manageable 1.10 to 1.83.
Rough season or not, Clarke averages 95 mph on his heater, can miss bats at an average or better rate and has a minor league option remaining. That makes him a decent depth pickup for a Brewers club that tends to rotate quite a few arms through the final couple spots in the bullpen. Clarke and the Royals agreed to a pre-tender deal in November, one that commits $1.25MM to the righty. That avoided a hearing in his second season of arbitration eligibility, and he’ll remain under team control through the 2025 campaign.
Brady, 25 in March, joined the Brewers as an undrafted free agent in the summer of 2022. The former BYU righty has delivered excellent results since turning pro, albeit primarily against younger competition. Brady debuted with Milwaukee’s affiliate in the Arizona Complex League in 2022 and split the 2023 season between High-A (49 innings) and Double-A (28 innings). He’s posted a sub-3.00 ERA at each stop, working to a composite 2.67 earned run average with a 24.2% strikeout rate, 6% walk rate and 50% ground-ball rate in 81 professional innings. Brady wasn’t ranked among the Brewers’ top prospects on any major publication, but he’ll bring a solid track record to the upper levels of Kansas City’s system.
Devanney, 27 in April, was Milwaukee’s 15th-round pick back in 2019. He’s played primarily shortstop in pro ball (1728 innings) but also has considerable experience at third base (730 innings) and second base (515 innings) in addition to brief looks at first base and in left field.
Devanney spent the 2023 season with the Brewers’ Triple-A club in Nashville, where he batted .271/.362/.461 in 390 plate appearances. That was about seven percent better than average, by measure of wRC+, in a hitter-friendly setting. Devanney walked at a healthy 11.8% clip against a lower-than-average 18.2% strikeout rate. He’s improved his bat-to-ball skills and plate discipline in recent seasons while also showing more power. Devanney entered the 2022 season with 12 career home runs, but he popped 23 long balls in 2022 and connected on another 11 this past season. He’s a right-handed hitter who torched lefties at a .318/.400/.534 clip this year and a .307/.384/.526 clip the year prior. Devanney isn’t a threat on the basepaths and has more pedestrian numbers versus righties, but he could be a lefty-mashing utility infielder if things go well.
Robert Murray of FanSided first reported the Brewers were acquiring Clarke. Jon Heyman of the New York Post added that two minor leaguers were going to the Royals in the deal.
Wow
What’s going on in KC? Did they find some cash under the seat cushions or something?
They want a new stadium and losing isn’t the way to get one
They have a new òwner with deeper pockets.
Doh! – Homer Simpson
That Royals defense is epic terrible. Something to keep in mind when looking at their pitchers.
What are you talking about?
The Royals defense sucks. Look it up if you need to.
Their defense is a mixed bag rather than just terrible. Certainly Melendez and Olivares are butchers with the glove. That said Maikel Garcia, Bobby Witt Jr, Kyle Isbell, Nick Prato, Michael Massey and Freddy Fermin are well above average on defense. Broadbrushing the entire team for the play of 2 or 3 guys who are learning new positions is incorrect.
Total team defense sucked in 2023. Half the team is playing out of position. It’s a mess.
You’re smoking crack dude. Oliveres and Melendez were bad (although Melendez got better as the season went on). Witt, Massey, Garcia, Pratto and Isbel are elite. Waters as average and Velasquez was below average. Also the stadium is an extra defender. Royals outfield is AL East stadium home runs go to die.
Are the Braves going to dfa him in two days to make room on the 40 man roster or trade him to Cincinnati for cash or PTBNL?
Unless Milwaukee trades him to Atlanta, I don’t see this happening.
Well that is embarrassing. I wonder how my brain translated Milwaukee as “Atlanta”?
I feel like Atlanta has been acquiring lots of guys to trade them later. When I first read this, I had to double-take the title of the article, as Atlanta acquiring Clarke only to flip him days later would make sense given recent trends.
Brewers, Braves, if you only glance at the headline, you could easily mistake those 2 names. I’ve done it myself
Because Atlanta stole the Braves from Milwaukee?
@gzimmerm – Now that’s funny!
Hank Aaron, obviously.
No big deal. The Braves used to be from Atlanta.
@cuffs2 This would be true if they moved somewhere else, but I don’t see that happening, given their fanbase in the Southeast.
True. Not that funny.
Yeah my bad the Braves used to be from Milwaukee is what I meant to say.
No worries, theme of the thread
The brewers seem to be collecting lots of bad pitching must be planning a rebuild.
The brewers have done this for years. Constantly getting former top arms that haven’t panned out. Often times they hit on these guys by finding something in them. Megill is a nice example from last year. Milner was a cast-off a few years back and I would put his results last year, from a lefty out of the pen prospective, against nearly every lefty not named Hader. The results would back that up. This is nothing new for the brewers. It often times yields really good results.
At least they’re not signing the likes of Matt Garza, Kyle Lohse or Jeff Suppan this off-season..I hope.
Don’t bring Kyle Lohse into this, he was everything they wanted those first two seasons. He was a bust in 2015 but so were the rest of the Brewers.
I don’t mind the move, as you said the Brewers generally do fairly well on these reclamation projects, I just with they hadn’t had to include Ryan Brady for a guy the the Royals were trying to move in order to free up a 40 man spot, Not that he’s a bigtime prospect by any means, but watching him pitch a few times in Appleton last year it just seems like he’s the kind of guy that could very well develop into a decent pen option.
Would have been more news worthy if they had acquired Taylor Swift.
Um, OK. The Brew Crew has had a lot of success with middling players who seem to blossom in Milwaukee. This is still a lowly “get” on paper.
~Yawn~
Decent bullpen piece for the Brewers.
I don’t hate it. He can be stretched out as a starter if needed and Clarke’s peripherals have always suggested he’s a better pitcher than his numbers suggest.
As per some previous comments, the Brewers do a very good job of reclaiming and developing pitchers from other teams. I’m okay with it.
I love this trade before I even click on the BR links for the return. We got two presumably warm-bodied, carbon-based life forms in exchange for Taylor Clarke. I’m calling it a win.
Yeah even 2 lottery ticket prospects for a pitcher that posted a -0.9 war is a win of a trade.
The Brewers will teach him a cutter, tweak his release point and he will be a beast. It’s what they do.
I’m not sure those will make him a beast, but maybe up to replacement level at least lol.
Royals already avoided arb with Taylor Clarke, he is under contract for $1.25M
mlbtraderumors.com/2023/11/royals-avoid-arbitratio…
Um. Who?
Devanney seems like a nice lottery ticket.
He’s posted decent numbers in AAA. Guess he got lost in the shuffle with the Brewers’ other infield prospects.
He will be a solid guy that will possibly turn into a Casey McGehee type
He’s 27 and didn’t get called up with the hot garbage the Brewers put in the lineup on the IF last year. I hope he’s great but I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Yeah, no idea why they passed him over for Monesterio. Same glove, better bat.
May have gotten something for not much. A tentative c trade!
Great trade for Milw. Good Luck Devanney. Optionable RP to shuttle with experience. They don’t need an 8-10th inning arm. They need the ability to shuttle a 5th/6th/11th plus inning arm who isn’t going to crater out there every time out. Get him in the lab. Get him below a 4ERA and we’ll take 50+ innings.